Flowers of our past . . .

Her note made me think about gardeners/gardens/plants who/that have influenced me over the years. I hope you’ll do the same and share some stories to immortalize these special people.

So many folks influenced me over the years it would be impossible to list them all.

But going way back into my childhood, I don’t know where, or even if, there was a vitex around the old Emken-Linton Funeral Home on 4th Street in Texas City. Yet now, everytime I smell one (above), I flash back to Helen Linton and the fun times we had around her home, next door to the funeral home, getting into places we definitely weren’t supposed to get into!

Other earliest flowers I remember are:

• the larkspur my mother (Carmita Beust) and grandmother (Mimi Gracida) grew at our house on Sauer Street, next to the old Sutton Elementary. (These above are at the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence)

• the false garlic that covered what we called Hilly Park (in Riverside). We made crowns by weaving the flowers together.

• a wonderful wild passionvine (pictured above) that grew and bloomed in the midst of weeds and trash in the back of the drugstore on Southmore and Sampson. It produced the most beautiful flower I’d ever seen. We watched that vine so closely waiting for it to work its magic.

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We always had flowers all over the yard. My mother’s motto was “Nothing that doesn’t produce or look REALLY pretty”. We had a huge garden and fruit and nut trees (double lot), but we also had a beautiful dogwood out front, gardenias, camellias, azaleas, tulip magnolia, and a very pampered Japanese maple. My mother doesn’t have a green thumb, she has a green hand.

Spring was marked by tons of narcissus and jonquils all over the yard. A multitude of places to hide Easter eggs. We had a fragrant double mock orange that bloomed every year on my birthday in May. The smell was fabulous. I keep looking for the dahlias she had – I remember huge light purple blooms on stalks 3′ tall. Oh, and the red honeysuckle on the back fence that we watched patiently for the blooms to open so we could suck the nectar out.

My mother didn’t pamper many plants, but her beloved peonies got their ice shock each year. My mother defrosted the freezer each winter and we lugged the pails if ice out to put on her one clump. Pine needles were heaped around her camellias as we swept the yard each fall. She loved the red Governor Mouton so much she had Daddy dig up the 20+ year old camellia and move it to the farm in 1986. It rewarded her by doubling in size. My mother has to thin the buds out each year to keep the limbs from breaking. My parents are now in their 80’s so my sisters and I are starting to plan out the massive job of digging out many of the plants, as we know they will not survive lack of regular watering, and when the farm is sold in the future, the new owners will probably not appreciate them. I need to get working on my new beds.

One of my favorite flowers is the hydranga – my grandmother always had the big pink and blue mopheads in her garden. I always thought they looked so beautiful. I have some pink ones in my garden now and they take me back to memories of my “Nanny” when they bloom.

My father is a dairy farmer in Middle TN, but I think he would have loved to focus on plants. Every year, he plants dozens of daffodils (I grew up knowing them as buttercups) all over our yard among others that have grown for decades along an old fence line. Some he moved from parts of the farm where old Civil War era homes had stood.

But it isn’t just the bulbs he loves. There’s a whole section of our yard where he has plants & wildflowers that he found “interesting” on other parts of the farm, and transplanted (sometimes against my mother’s desires) to be featured along with the high dollar nursery choices.

To this day, I will plant random clumps of “buttercups” in my Oak Forest yard, and in the middle of one bed grows a mystery plant that Dad thought was “interesting” and I can’t bring myself to weed out.

My grandfather had a wonderful garden in Cleveland, OH where he grew roses, huge peonies and strawberries, among other things.

Growing up, my mom’s garden (also in Cleveland) had lily of the valley and gladiolus in the front garden. I loved the weeds that popped up in the backyard: Queen Anne’s Lace and buttercups. And although they’re not flowers, mom has two magnificent Japanese maples that are 40 years old and still going strong.

I grew up in the mid West so I have memories of different flowers. The first one that comes to mind were the Red Poppies that grew in my Grandma’s yard. Someday I’m going to try some of those here. They do grow here, right?

Speaking of tomatoes all winter, my Glory plants are going berzerk and actually falling over because they are so loaded with fruit! Much better than I did over the summer. Just remember Glorys for next fall.

I also grew up in NE Ohio and remember gladiolus, lily of the valley, queen anne’s lace and the others mentioned. Not to forget the early bloomers too – crocus, hyacinths, spring beauties and may apples. Thanks for these fond memories!